heads up

Some changes to the way Debian manages its archive and releases
architectures may be in the works. Most of this doesn't affect Debian
Hurd because we aren't a release architecture anyway.
Architectures which are not released or have low download rates will
be hosted on a separate archive; this makes it easier to allow the
mirror network to only mirror the parts which need high-capacity
hosting.
But there will also be requirements for hosting on the secondary
archive; those are currently proposed as follows:
1. the architecture must be freely usable (i.e., without NDAs)
2. the architecture must be able to run a buildd 24/7 sustained
(without crashing)
3. the architecture must have an actual, running, working buildd
4. the port must include basic unix functionality, e.g resolving
DNS names and firewalling
5. binary packages must be built from the unmodified Debian source
(required, among other reasons, for license compliance)
6. binaries for the proposed architecture must have been built and signed
by official Debian developers
7. the architecture must have successfully compiled 50% of the archive's
source (excluding architecture-specific packages)
8. 5 developers who will use or work on the port must send in
signed requests for its addition
9. the port must demonstrate that they have at least 50 users
These are not cast into stone, but we should expect something like
this to become reality I think.
Taking these in order:
1. the architecture must be freely usable (i.e., without NDAs)
Our arch is ordinary i386 hardware, so we meet this.
2. the architecture must be able to run a buildd 24/7 sustained
(without crashing)
3. the architecture must have an actual, running, working buildd
This, I think needs to be our target.
4. the port must include basic unix functionality, e.g resolving
DNS names and firewalling
We certainly do DNS names, and I'm asking what specific firewalling
support is required.
5. binary packages must be built from the unmodified Debian source
(required, among other reasons, for license compliance)
6. binaries for the proposed architecture must have been built and signed
by official Debian developers
We do this already.
7. the architecture must have successfully compiled 50% of the archive's
source (excluding architecture-specific packages)
Having a working buildd on fast hardware should make this achievable.
What percentage are we at now?
8. 5 developers who will use or work on the port must send in
signed requests for its addition
9. the port must demonstrate that they have at least 50 users
We should be able to do these (right?). If we need to add developers,
we can do that, but we need to do it ASAP because it takes time to get
through the process.
These requirements are not necessarily rigid, but we should do our
level best. If we don't meet this, then we'll be responsible for
maintaining our own package repository until such time as we do.
That's not a disaster, but we have benefited from the Debian
infrastructure thus far and it would be nice to continue to.
Thomas